


Anything to Get Home

by Spannah339



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Enjoy!, Gen, War, lots of angst :), uuuh angst, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 08:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18206174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spannah339/pseuds/Spannah339
Summary: Five finds himself in the past, on a mission he doesn't know if he can handle and facing a choice he doesn't want to make.





	Anything to Get Home

“1968, Number Five. That's when your next assignment is taking you.”

The Handler stood in front of him, holding out the briefcase. Five took it, his hands closing over the familiar worn handle. He nodded, once. 

“Who's my target?”

“Someone who doesn't belong. He managed to get his hands on one of our briefcases - not entirely sure how, but that will be taken care of. Your job is to eliminate him before he makes any significant changes to the course of the war.”

“How on earth did he managed to get a briefcase?” 

“We don't know. An agent must have been careless - I do hope it wasn't you.”

“No, not me. Not yet at least,” Five said. He kept the rules - he kept his briefcase with him at all times. Briefcase and book - the two things he was never without. He wasn't about to leave himself stranded in time again, and the book was his only way home - his only link to the past. 

“Well, that's good. Anyway - your job is to eliminate Klaus Hargreeves in 24 hours. Good luck, though I'm sure you don't need it.” She waved a hand at him and stalked off, heels clicking on the floor as she left. But Five had frozen, unable to hear anything beyond the name she had given him. 

Klaus Hargreeves. Klaus. He had a brother called Klaus, once upon a time. Klaus, who had always been afraid to be alone. Klaus who had always been the first to notice things, the first to get into trouble, the last to listen to their father. Klaus who, according to Vanya's book, had spiralled hard into a life of drugs and homelessness. 

Klaus his brother. 

No, no it _couldn't_ be. Surely it was a coincidence - surely there was more than one Klaus Hargreeves in the world. 

But dread still filled him as he clicked the switches on the briefcase and was transported back in time. If any of his siblings managed to get stuck in the past it would be Klaus. 

It didn't take him long to locate his target. He managed to slip into the army easily enough, relieving a soldier of a uniform he had no need for any more. Maybe he was a little old, but he knew no one would care. This was war. 

His target - Five refused to call him Klaus in case he  _ was _ Klaus - was a tall, skinny man with a small beard and short, curly hair. Five tried not to see the similarities between this man and the boy who had been his brother, tired not to compare him to the limp, cold form of his brother he had stumbled across decades ago in the Apocalypse. The target was also almost constantly high - but that wasn't uncommon, and it didn't mean he had been an addict before the war. Drugs were all too available in the army. 

Despite his many assurances to himself that this wasn't his brother, Five still hesitated. Usually, he would have gone right for it. In and out - an easy job. Wait for a firefight and he wouldn't even have to worry about covering his tracks, the enemy gunfire and excess of bodies already lying in the muddy ground would do that for him. 

But he hesitated. And he watched. Maybe it was the way his target looked at things that weren't there. Maybe it was that fact that his eyes lingered longer than others on the dead bodies of their comrades. Maybe it was the ease of familiarity in his interactions with the drugs in circulation. Whatever it was, Five hesitated long enough to see the tattoos. 

The first was par for the course - practically everyone had one like it. A large shoulder inking, outlining the regiment he was part of. The second and third were a little more suspicious - HELLO and GOODBYE, inked onto the palm of his hands. Five tired not to remember if Vanya had written anything about that in her book. He didn’t think about the identical tattoos on the body he had buried when he was thirteen.

The fourth one sealed the deal. The small tattoo, half hidden under the dirt and grime of war. A tattoo that Five traced on his own arm as he caught sight of it. An umbrella, black on Klaus’ wrist. 

This was his brother. And Five had to kill him. 

Anything to get home. That had been his motto. He had killed so many innocent people to get here, to face this challenge. Had the Commission done this on purpose, to test him? He had to do it - who knows what they would do if he refused them. Klaus would probably  _ thank _ him for doing it. 

But he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to even consider raising his gun, pulling the trigger, watching his brother collapse in death.

Instead, he watched. He watched as Klaus laughed and talked with his companions, practically leaning on the man beside him. Five watched and he waited - he was good at waiting, he had waited for thirty years. He had twenty hours to figure out what to do. 

The first thing he noticed was that Klaus was never far from his briefcase. Five appreciated that, his own always by his side, and yet it confused him in a way. Klaus was a coward - Vanya had practically said as much in her book. More than that - he was on the front lines, the place where the most dead wallowed. Klaus hated the dead, hated his power. He wouldn't want to face so much death. So why was he here? Why was he in a hell when he could escape whenever he pleased when he could go home with the flick of a clasp. 

The second thing Five noticed was that Klaus was never far from another soldier - David Katz. It didn't take him long to realise Dave was the reason Klaus was staying. 

They were never apart. Constantly watching the other’s back, laughing and joking together, sharing looks. Dave made Klaus happy - Five could see that instantly. Despite being surrounded by death and war and horror, Klaus was  _ happy _ . Happier than any of them had been as kids.

Watching Klaus laugh and joke with Dave and other members of their squad sent a strange aching into Five’s chest. This small group was close - was almost like a family. Five had never experienced that. He hadn’t been very close to his siblings - sure, he, Ben and Vanya hung out a bit, but they hadn’t been a proper family. They couldn’t be, not with Reginald Hargreeves standing over them. 

Five longed for that. He longed to know his siblings, to see what they would be like at his age. He longed for the memories that Klaus undoubtedly had, memories of growing up together, of sharing each other’s pain and joy. 

But he couldn’t - his job was to stop the apocalypse. And he couldn’t do that until he had figured out what to do here. With effort, he turned his attention back to the problem at hand, trying to fight back the urge to reveal who he was to Klaus. 

He couldn’t kill Klaus now that he knew his target was his brother. He had spent so long trying to find his way back, trying to save the world, to save his  _ family _ , to give it up and kill one of them. 

He couldn’t go back empty handed - it would destroy the last four years of hard work he had put into building up the trust of the Commission, it would destroy any chance he had of being able to get away from them. Besides that, if he left now they would just send someone else to kill Klaus. Someone who wouldn’t hesitate. 

“Heya, Pops!” 

The voice jerked him out of his thoughts and he looked up to see Klaus settling beside him. For a long moment, Five stared at him, taking in his brother, trying to figure out what kind of man he had become. Then he realised he was just staring and that might be kind of rude, so he smiled. 

“Hello,” he said shortly, not really wanting to engage Klaus in a conversation. He needed to go - being around his brother was only bringing up bittersweet memories - the aching in his chest that he would never be able to cure. The memory that he had lost his whole childhood, lost his whole family. 

“You’re new, right?” 

“Yes, I arrived this morning,” Five said - not technically a lie. Klaus nodded, shifting. Five watching him, noticing the familiar gestures, seeing the familiar tattoo. He subtly covered his own with his other hand. 

Then he suddenly realised that this was a perfect opportunity to gain intel - he had been too caught up in memories and the presence of his brother to think straight. This was unprofessional. 

“How long have you been here?”

“‘Bout ten months. Hopefully, the war’ll finish and we can go home.” He glanced through the camp, eyes obviously searching for Dave. 

“And where’s home for you?” Five asked. Klaus shrugged, leaning back and tucking his hands under his head. He seemed to hesitate. 

“America, the great land of liberty!” He chuckled softly, as though that was amusing. Five looked down at him and the aching in his chest grew. 

“Say you could go back now,” Five began slowly. “Would you?” 

Klaus sat up, glancing towards the briefcase beside him. He closed his hand over it, silent for a long moment. Then he shook his head, his seriousness suddenly gone. 

“Naw, I got Dave here - someone has to watch his back!” he said enthusiastically. “What about you, surely you got people to get back to? Kids, a family?” 

Five had to turn his head so Klaus wouldn’t see the sudden tears pricking his eyes. He shouldn’t have taken this assignment. He was getting too emotional. He wanted to tell Klaus - he wanted to say who he was, to tell him how much he had missed them all, how much he had wanted to come back. He wanted to go home, to bond with his siblings, stop the apocalypse and be a _family_. He wanted to rewind the last 40 years and go back to being 13 and too full of himself. 

Instead, he just shook his head, wiping his eyes slightly and turning back to Klaus. 

“Nothing for me,” he said, shifting slightly. “I’m here to do a job and once it’s done I’ll go onto the next.” 

“There you are!” To Five’s immense relief, Dave interrupted before Klaus had a chance to continue the conversation. Klaus scrambled to his feet and greeted Dave, waving a brief farewell to Five before the two of them moved off. Five watched them go, suddenly and with a sinking heart realising what he had to do. 

His chance to strike came a few hours later - he hadn’t slept as the sun fell over the trenches and his patience was rewarded when a firefight broke out, the enemy’s weapons blaring, waking the half-asleep soldiers. 

Five didn’t hesitate - he snatched up a sniper rifle, book and briefcase and teleported out of the trenches, settling upon a nearby hill overlooking the fight. 

His hands were shaking as he settled with his eye to the sight of the weapon, searching the line of soldiers to find Klaus. Finally, he did - his brother was crouched beside Dave and both of them were focused, guns in hand, acting like the soldiers they were. 

Five watched for a long moment, not wanting to pull the trigger. But he had no choice - anything to get home.  _ Anything _ to get home. He had killed so many people - why was this life any different? 

Taking a deep breath, he wiped a tear of his eye and aimed the weapon. Closing his eyes, he let out the breath again, his heart calming, the familiar grip on the gun in his hand. 

“I’m sorry, Klaus,” he whispered and pulled the trigger. 

Down in the trenches, Klaus let out a whoop as the flying bullets slowed. 

“Christ on a cracker! That was a close one, huh Dave?” he cried. “Dave?” 

 

“You convinced him to return to his own time?” the Handler asked, raising her eyebrows. 

“This way his own timeline isn’t interrupted with him gone - who knows what change that would have made to history,” Five said evenly.

“There’s a reason you’re our best, Number Five,” the Handler said, smiling widely. Five nodded, forcing a smile in return. 

“I try.” 

Months later, when he walked into Klaus’ room, when he saw the grief and the pain and the new tattoo and recognized the symptoms of time travel he pushed down the guilt, pushed down the sudden urge to tell Klaus the truth even if it would mean Klaus would hate him. He kept silent, focused on the task at hand. 

Anything to stop the apocalypse. 

Anything to get home.  


End file.
